“I didn’t need help when I went to college. these lazy kids just need to get a paper route for the summer to pay for a semester or two. it couldn’t cost more than a couple hundred bucks for books and classes”

what you did over your 25 year long career is irrelevant to what current people are going through. the rest of this is a rant on “boomer” mentality. I’m an xer myself, just sick of people perpetuating the broken ideals of the most spoiled generation.

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I’ve been in IT just as long but in the last 10 years I have been asked to learn the following under threat of becoming “irrelevant”; cloud computing, big data analysis, cryptographic signing and tracking of data, machine learning, and the most recent artificial intelligence.

how the fuck are we supposed to keep up with this and maintain our family/home and maintain friendships and maintain our sanity all while juggling the roles and responsibilities weighing us down at work.

in 2021 I worked over 3200 hours in the year. that’s double 8s almost every single day. part of that time was training time I was forced to comply with to make sure “the company remains competitive.” it also doesn’t include the 16 hours of training over the weekends that I couldn’t claim because, “if you can’t perform the responsibilities given to you within office hours provided then perhaps you should work from the office under supervision.” I think we all know what that meant. want to know what I did with all that training? I’ll let you know as soon as I use it.

point is, the world got fucked up, and greedy pieces of shit at the top make the smaller greedy pieces of shit greed harder, and so forth. when will it be enough? when can we stop working on frivolous bullshit that’s going to be dropped and abandoned when “the next big thing” shows up? when can we start building shit that matters so much that we can’t just abandon it?

so, what’s this got to do with YT? if I could have watched 200 hours of training videos for free online instead of taking multiple courses, homework, tests, etc; I could spent more time with my kids, or hobbies, or doing whatever the fuck I want. instead, I was stuck doing busywork for some other assholes bonus.

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Ahh, that makes sense. you’re not the target demographic of YT. you’re too educated and too driven and you learn through more advanced methods.

that’s OK, great for you and I’m happy that you’re so successful. now, what about the millions of users that don’t have the means to access higher education and training provided by their employers? what about the 18yo kid living in a leaky trailer with their methed out mom or dad that’s looking for literally any way out they can afford.

perhaps in your quest you surrounded yourself with ultra successful people and forgot that there is a whole world with billions of people that do not have the same means as you do.

not trying to diminish the hard work and efforts you have clearly applied, but just because you did doesn’t mean everyone can.

by removing easy access to content provided by these communities, even if they are wholly or partially incorrect, it only deepens the chasm between long term professional success and endentured struggle.

I will not support any action that denies a life the opportunity to rise above their status and claim a better life for themselves and their family. for every one person who stands above their born status increases the potential successes of those around them, and even cooler, it’s a feedback system. your successes become their successes, and their successes become our successes.

Just to make it clear, I’m not trying to diminish your success I’m just trying to establish my perspective on your perspective so that we can share in a perspective that includes our success.